On Orangutan Conservation: What I Discovered

On this page, I have been sharing my own thoughts and other people’s thoughts on the correlation between science-based knowledge and fiction. This way, progress in sustainable development can be attained from different angles.

Fiction is what this page is about. But if you look deeply at the page, you will see in the “about section” that this is a free space. I wanted to take the time and the platform that I have here and share some of the insights I had from a master’s research I conducted about orangutan conservation.

Yes, it started because of a familiar sensitivity I had towards great apes. I am specifically more curious about great apes than probably all the other animals on earth. This is due to their similarities to me, myself, and humans as a consequence of that.

So, in that way I went on to understand why their situation is so dire. Why are the populations declining so much? What can be done about it? But the question of what can be done about it was not the main focus. I would probably be unable to do anything about it at the end of the day, even though I could perhaps consider that this piece here is trying to do something about it.

So, I discovered that the amount of orangutans on the planet is exceptionally small. This always surprises people when I share with them the number of a certain animal that exists on the planet in the wild. I compare it to the amount of farmed animals or humans themselves. This is always an impressive and stark statistic.

From there I thought that the reason would be within the secondary consequences of humans removing their habitat. This would be habitat removal, which would in turn contribute massively to their decline.

However, what struck me was a nuance within this crisis. While their forest home, especially on the island of Borneo, is being erased at an alarming rate, orangutans themselves possess a notable adaptability. They could potentially survive this habitat transformation by venturing into newly established farms, foraging for insects, fruits, and other edible items found there. Dietary flexibility, in theory, might not be their biggest hurdle. The actual crux of the problem emerges when this adaptability leads to conflict with humans.

Imagine a low-income individual responsible for tending a piece of farmland. An orangutan, driven by the need for food as its natural habitat shrinks, enters this land. The orangutan, likely a solitary male or a mother with her offspring, or occasionally a small group of adolescent males, would not perceive this as an invasion. It is simply seeking sustenance. In doing so, it might inevitably damage some of the crops. For the farmer, often lacking detailed information about the orangutan’s ecological importance, its protected status, or its cognitive closeness to humans, the situation appears straightforward: a very large, orange monkey is causing problems that must be resolved.

Attempting to resolve this conflict in a way that is amicable to the orangutan is exceedingly difficult and costly. It would involve contacting a national or international conservation agency. The process requires specialized equipment, such as a tranquilizer gun, sedative drugs calculated for the animal’s weight, and perhaps mitigating cushions for its fall. Then, the animal must be transported and released into a different habitat.

Consider the experience from the orangutan’s perspective. Those are very complex beings, and have their own way of life. So imagine they are making their own decisions about their lives as you do, you human. And you are suddenly shot and tranquilized and they put you in a cage. And after a day or two they will release you in a totally different space from where you used to live. That would be insane for you. This is more or less the kind of experience the orangutan has when it goes through that pathway.

So what I also discovered is that they would probably not thrive in that scenario, even if they are removed according to the conservation protocols. They would probably not adapt to the new environment that they are in. So, if a person were to, considering the orangutan perspective, remove them and put them somewhere they could live a good life, they would have to track where this orangutan came from and what their life is like. They would have to put them back into their environment because they have their own social bondings with the other orangutans around there, even though they live kind of individually.

Thus, such translocation efforts often do not lead to the orangutan thriving. They may struggle to adapt to the new environment. If one were to truly consider the orangutan’s well being, a relocation would ideally involve understanding where that individual came from, its specific life patterns, and returning it to its own familiar territory. Orangutans, though often solitary, maintain a web of distant but significant relationships: females they have mated with, adolescent companions, or, for a mother, the area where her offspring have grown. They possess a form of cultural knowledge tied to their specific environment. Disrupting this is a severe intervention.

Unfortunately, this careful, albeit still disruptive, translocation is not what typically occurs. The more common outcome, given the circumstances, is that the individual farmer feels more inclined to kill the animal. It presents as the easier, less expensive solution. Lacking a deep connection to the orangutan or an understanding of its significance, and unwilling or unable to bear the considerable expense of humane removal, the primate is often killed on the spot. This direct killing, this poaching driven by conflict, is the principal reason orangutan populations are declining so precipitously.

To understand why these killings have such a devastating impact, one must consider their reproductive biology. Orangutans reproduce very slowly, much like humans. A female will typically care for one, or rarely two, offspring for up to eight years before she becomes fertile again and ready to conceive her next young. The entire cycle, from one birth to the next viable offspring, can take as long as twelve years. With a natural lifespan of around fifty years, a female might only produce four or five offspring in her entire lifetime.

Consequently, the life of every single orangutan is incredibly valuable to the species’ survival. This crucial fact is often not factored into local decisions. If, for example, fifteen orangutans are killed in a region each month, this rate of loss far outstrips their capacity to reproduce and replace those individuals. The population, on average, will inevitably decline. This pattern repeats year after year, leading to a continuous downward trend. This reality was, for me, the most impressive and sobering finding: that the primary driver of their decline was not some abstract, indirect consequence of human activity, but the very direct act of humans killing them.

Here Are Some of the most Relevant Research based facts I would have to share — 

The Bornean Orangutan has an estimated population of around 104,700 individuals, the Sumatran Orangutan 13,846 individuals, and the Tapanuli Orangutan fewer than 800 individuals. All species of orangutan are critically endangered, and if you think about it, these numbers are devastatingly small when you consider that between 1999 and 2015, Borneo lost 150,000 orangutans due to deforestation and killing. In 1973, when three-quarters of Borneo was forested, there were 288,500 orangutans, while in 2012, only 104,700 were left.

Malaysia and Indonesia are the epicentres of the global palm oil industry, jointly contributing to 90% of the world’s palm oil production, and this industry significantly bolsters the GDP of both nations. But here is what struck me as particularly disturbing. Research reveals that while major contributors to Indonesian palm oil production like India and China utilize it for food and essential goods, a significant portion also goes towards non-food demands such as cosmetics, soaps, and even biodiesel.

In an interview-based survey of villagers in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, 15% of the villagers who participated in the survey reported orangutan-related conflict in their village at some point, and of those, 33% reported that these conflicts were frequent. When expressing their reaction to encounters with orangutans, 46% reacted by chasing them away, while 5% reacted by killing or trying to kill them.

The research shows that 232 out of 4732 villagers interviewed responded “yes” when questioned whether they had ever killed an orangutan. Of these, 2.7% reported that they had killed 1 orangutan while 0.5% respondents reported killing between 3 and 20 orangutans, and two reported killing 70+ animals. This is devastating when you think about it, because the study also shows that killing orangutan is more common among those who did not know the national law. The killing rate was 19% for those who responded to not know that orangutan are protected, compared to 8% among those who knew it. Only 15% of individuals who had taken the survey responded that orangutans were protected in their customary law, and 26% of interviewees reported that they did not know that orangutans are protected by national law.

What I discovered through this research is that we are facing something that could be described as a systematic elimination of a species that exhibits remarkable cognitive abilities akin to humans, showcasing skills in problem-solving, self-awareness, and displaying a wide range of emotions. They engage in complex social relationships, experience physical and emotional suffering, and demonstrate extensive tool use and manipulation that reveals their ability to adapt and innovate. Yet despite all this evidence of their sentience and intelligence, we continue to allow their destruction for things like cosmetics and biodiesel. It makes you wonder about the disconnect between what we know scientifically about these beings and how we treat them in practice.

Now, here is a market-based analysis I would like you to know of, That was within the research I made.

A market-based perspective

Two instances of market failure are readily apparent in the presented problem. Numerous producer-to-consumer externalities have resulted from the palm oil industry’s rapid expansion. (weimer and vining, 1992). The externality that is important to be considered in this report, is the depletion of the Bornean rainforest that is causing Orangutangs to come in closer contact with humans, the overlapping of orangutangs habitat with human land is a negative externally for both parties; for the local community because orangutangs are harmful for the plantation, and for the orangutangs, because they are exposed to a serious risk of being harmed or killed. The rainforest is a global public good, therefore it is intrinsically non-excludable and non-rivalrous to a varying degree, these features make the property rights of the rainforests particularly hard to enforce, as well as it makes it vulnerable to overexploitation (weimer and vining, 1992).

In theory, the rainforests should be a pure public good, as they were prior to the industrial revolution, because until industries began exploiting the forests, the amount of forest one explored did not reduce the amount of forest others could explore. However, since overexploitation began, nature could regenerate quickly enough for the resources to be distributed fairly among humans and all other living beings (Hartley, 2002). Orangutangs are just as much a victim of the unequal distribution of this global public good as are all humans who are affected by it. It is interesting to note that natural habitats are fundamentally non-rivalrous and have always been distributed more equitably among all living organisms; however, the rise of industries of scope and scale has transformed fundamentally non-rivalrous and non- excludable goods into those that are rivalrous and excludable (Teece, David, 1993).

When it comes to people dealing with orangutangs encroaching their lands, even when they have no intention of harming the animal, it is a hard task for them to get rid of the animal without harming it or having to bear a significant monetary loss (Santika et al., 2022). As things stand, of the three options to deal with the issue, the less costly for the farmer is to actually kill the animal, although if we are to consider intangible costs such as the value of an Orangutang life it becomes the costliest alternative for society. The other two options are:

1- chasing them away or fencing the area, but this has proven to be ineffective in large settlements (Sherman et al., 2020). In most of the cases orangutangs are starving and find ways to break into the fenced area or comeback in case they had been chased away, to steal food, this results in the plantation being harmed (Ancrenaz et al., 2016). The problem is that the area that was harmed belongs to a company that will hold the worker accountable for the depletion of their plantation. Unfortunately, in many cases it results in the worker killing the orangutang simply because it is the costliest effective solution to the problem (Sherman et al., 2020).

This case exemplifies the free rider problem. Companies are trying to stablish property rights over patches of land that are essentially public goods, as a result they are constantly faced with the problem of someone who has not acquired the right of exploring their territory doing so, particularly those who do not even understand the concept of property rights (Gruber, J 2019).

2- The other option is translocation; this is the method in which animals are purposefully taken from vulnerable habitats and situations in order to be released into areas that are deemed safe (weimer and vining, 1992). However, the cost-effectiveness of this method seems to be questionable, as it requires the use of special equipment, a “blow pipe gun” and a special permit from the police office is required for one to be able to use it, also an expensive sedative drug and antidote in accordance with the animal weight is needed to perform the translocation (Sherman, Ancrenaz and Meijaard, 2020). This is not only a costly option, but also dangerous for the orangutangs. Underestimation of their bodyweight can lead to death in some cases, as well as the failure of the net capture of the animal after the shot of anesthesia. Furthermore, reintroducing the animals to habitats considered to be safe is not as simple as one might think, rather it is costly and related to a high mortality rate (Sherman, Ancrenaz and Meijaard, 2020). Annual expenditure on orangutang translocation and reintroduction has significatively increased in the past 20 years, reaching 2.8 million US dollars in 2019 (Santika et al., 2022).

As it generally happens when dealing with public goods, the companies responsible for dealing with the issue have little incentive to translocate the orangutangs (Ostrom, 2015). The market often fails to identify the value people place on the conservation of the rainforest and avoiding orangutang extinction. (Kumar, 2011) As a result, companies will try to avoid spending resources on conservation measures such as translocation and reintroduction, as they do not want to spend their limited capital on ‘non-productive work’ (weimer and vining, 1992).

An interesting negative externality of implementing the translocation as a policy intervention, is that as people in the local communities are also going through hardship, they feel abandoned while seeing so many resources being spent on orangutangs while so little gets spent on them. This creates a sense of rivalry among the local people towards Orangutangs, which results in them having little interest in preserving them (CHUA et al., 2021).

In addition to the lack of education and knowledge of the villagers who are exposed to orangutang encounters, which exacerbates the difficulty of resolving human-orangutang conflicts, the lack of scientific knowledge on orangutang behaviour prevents researchers from conclusively determining which conservation policy orangutangs respond to best (Santika et al., 2022).

People from the local communities are the frontline in resolving the conflict, as they must share their land with orangutang habitat. However, they have demonstrated a lack of knowledge regarding the global status of orangutangs and appear to be unaware that orangutangs are legally protected. Even though orangutangs are fully protected by Indonesian national law, the rate of law enforcement among villagers is low. Only 15% of individuals who had taken the survey responded that orangutangs were protected in their costumery law, and 26% of interviewees reported that they did not know that orangutangs are protected by national law (Meijaard et al., 2011). The study shows that killing orangutang is more common among those who did not know the national law, the killing rate was 19% for those who responded to not know that orangutang are protected, compared to 8% among those who knew it (Meijaard et al., 2011). This data demonstrates poor patrolling and law enforcement, which can be an effective policy for dealing with the conflict.

Even though there had been a few extensive studies on orangutang response to conservation policies, researchers still consider orangutangs and their conflicts with humans to be an understudied subject (Santika et al., 2022).

Voluntary initiatives such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Palm Oil Innovation Group (POIG) have aimed to mitigate the environmental damage caused by palm oil production, with indirect but notable impacts on animal conservation, particularly species like orangutans. RSPO’s certification process prioritizes the protection of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas, which are critical habitats for endangered species. By focusing on reducing deforestation and preserving these ecosystems, RSPO certification has helped slow down habitat destruction, which is crucial for the survival of orangutans and other wildlife. A study by Carlson et al. (2018) found that deforestation rates in RSPO-certified areas were 15–35% lower than in non-certified concessions, suggesting a moderate positive impact on animal habitats (Carlson et al., 2018). However, loopholes and enforcement challenges have limited the overall effectiveness, as highlighted by ongoing deforestation within certified regions (Environmental Investigation Agency, 2019; Gaveau et al., 2019).

The POIG initiative, which builds upon RSPO standards, places stronger emphasis on preventing deforestation and peatland destruction, ensuring that palm oil producers adhere to stricter environmental protocols. While POIG does not explicitly focus on animal welfare, its stringent requirements for biodiversity protection have a direct positive impact on species like orangutans by reducing habitat loss. This, however, remains limited by the small scale of POIG adoption relative to global palm oil production (Meijaard et al., 2020). The broader adoption of these initiatives is crucial, as 81% of global palm oil production remains outside the RSPO’s certification scope (RSPO, 2023c), leaving significant portions of endangered animal habitats vulnerable to unsustainable practices.

Despite some positive impacts, projections suggest that without stronger enforcement and a more widespread regulatory framework, voluntary measures like RSPO will continue to fall short in fully protecting animal habitats. In regions such as Sumatra, where non-certified producers dominate, over 70% of deforestation between 2010 and 2015 occurred in high-biodiversity areas (Vijay et al., 2016). The inclusion of stronger legal frameworks, such as the Forest Commodities Regulation (EU), could complement voluntary certifications by enforcing stricter requirements on deforestation-free supply chains, providing a more reliable safeguard for critical animal habitats in the future (Santika et al., 2022). However, substantial progress hinges on expanding these initiatives to cover a larger percentage of global production and ensuring strict compliance.

Written by Marqv Neves, Author of The Jacksons’ Debate

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228994545-the-jacksons-debate